thessalian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thessalian) wrote2010-06-25 01:39 pm
thessalian) wrote2010-06-25 01:39 pm
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Day 19 - Best TV show cast
I saw this question coming and said, "This meme hates me and wants me to suffer". I mean, seriously, isn't the entire point of a show its cast? Admittedly, everyone looks for something different in their ideal cast, but on the whole, if they can act worth a shit and have chemistry, I call it a win. Pretty is an optional extra. If shows don't manage that a reasonable amount of the time, odds are that I won't watch it.
So, with all of the shows I've watched to choose from, I'm going to go with an old classic: MASH. MASH was always a really weird show because, like the film and the book before it, the show turned around and tried to balance genuine tragedy with every kind of humour from witty one-liners to outright slapstick. That was, in fact, the entire point of the show - how people got dragooned into hell and tried to keep working and sane any way they could. It takes a hell of an actor to pull that kind of thing off and do it well, not to mention the effort it takes to do all that and portray a solid three-dimensional character.
That's what the cast of MASH had to work with. It would have been easy for Loretta Swit to play Hot-Lips Houlihan as some vacuous tramp whose bedpost-notches were judged by their military rank. I don't even know how Larry Linville managed to make Frank Burns remotely sympathetic. And I don't really know why Hawkeye Pierce never got on my nerves, but I attribute that more to Alan Alda's acting than anything else. MASH's characters were caricatures, more or less, but the cast turned those caricatures into real characters, with dimensions and depth and all the things that caricatures tend not to have. So while there are a lot of honourable mentions (Leverage, Firefly, Wonderfalls etc) ... I have to go with the classics.
I'm also convinced that Miss Piggy was based on Margaret 'Hot-Lips' Houlihan. But I could be wrong. *g*
On the subject of TV show casting: Jonathan M Woodward. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now NCIS ... is there anything in which he doesn't play a vaguely slimy, vaguely villainous smug tit? Why do they keep casting him like this? Is it the innocent-face? Is it that he gives good snivel? Has he just got typecast as 'sort of villainous; not even remotely worthy of Big Bad status but will never be seen as a good guy ever again because of how he was cast in Whedon's stuff"? I kind of feel bad for him, y'know? Snivelling lackey just seems a harsh way for someone's career to go.
So, with all of the shows I've watched to choose from, I'm going to go with an old classic: MASH. MASH was always a really weird show because, like the film and the book before it, the show turned around and tried to balance genuine tragedy with every kind of humour from witty one-liners to outright slapstick. That was, in fact, the entire point of the show - how people got dragooned into hell and tried to keep working and sane any way they could. It takes a hell of an actor to pull that kind of thing off and do it well, not to mention the effort it takes to do all that and portray a solid three-dimensional character.
That's what the cast of MASH had to work with. It would have been easy for Loretta Swit to play Hot-Lips Houlihan as some vacuous tramp whose bedpost-notches were judged by their military rank. I don't even know how Larry Linville managed to make Frank Burns remotely sympathetic. And I don't really know why Hawkeye Pierce never got on my nerves, but I attribute that more to Alan Alda's acting than anything else. MASH's characters were caricatures, more or less, but the cast turned those caricatures into real characters, with dimensions and depth and all the things that caricatures tend not to have. So while there are a lot of honourable mentions (Leverage, Firefly, Wonderfalls etc) ... I have to go with the classics.
I'm also convinced that Miss Piggy was based on Margaret 'Hot-Lips' Houlihan. But I could be wrong. *g*
On the subject of TV show casting: Jonathan M Woodward. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now NCIS ... is there anything in which he doesn't play a vaguely slimy, vaguely villainous smug tit? Why do they keep casting him like this? Is it the innocent-face? Is it that he gives good snivel? Has he just got typecast as 'sort of villainous; not even remotely worthy of Big Bad status but will never be seen as a good guy ever again because of how he was cast in Whedon's stuff"? I kind of feel bad for him, y'know? Snivelling lackey just seems a harsh way for someone's career to go.